All You Need
by Insane Troll Logic
Summary: Looking back, he doesn’t think he’d change it for the world [LoganMax, LoganValerie]


**Title:** All You Need  
**Disclaimer: **I have never owned a television show in my life.  
**Characters/Ships:** Max/Logan, Logan/Val   
**Rating: **PG  
**Summary:** Looking back, he doesn't think he'd change it for the world Logan/Max, Logan/Valerie  
**Author's note: **Why is there no Val fic? I wonder this sometimes. (Also, I actually wrote straight up romance. There is something wrong with me.)

_**All You Need**_

It's a bright day when he meets her for the first time. She's walking out of a cafe, he accidentally crashes into her and her scalding hot mug of coffee (she takes it black, he likes the boldness) dumps all over the front of his shirt. She looks at him, red sweep over her face (it matches her hair) and she's stammering apologies so quickly he can't hardly get a word in edgewise. He lets her prattle on for a good long minute and offers to buy her another cup of coffee.

When he looks back on it, he likes to think it wasn't a sunny day, likes to think it's was dark and foreboding with great dark clouds and crashing thunder heralding one of the biggest mistakes of his life. But it's not like that.

It is bright and sunny and perfect and when she tells him her name is Valerie, he's as happy as he's ever been.

* * *

The shooting overshadows his first meeting with Max. There's not a thing he can do to change that. He meets Max at the darkest point in his live.

Looking back, he doesn't think he'd change it for the world.

* * *

At first all he notices only the good. How her eyes light up when she laughs, how her eccentricities pile up in the most bizarre fashion, how she says his name.

But he must have known it wasn't perfect because he keeps his secrets.

* * *

Max sees him raw.

Max sees him broken.

Max sees every single piece of his fractured soul.

And little by little, Max puts him back together.

* * *

With Val, things turn sour faster that he would have thought possible. Her quaint little habits turn into bigger and bigger annoyances; she stops admiring his chivalry and starts being stifled by it.

The night Nathan Herrero dies, he comes back to the Penthouse to find Val with and bottle of liquor clutched in her hands. She's furious with Logan for missing a dinner gala. She screams that people die all the time, that avenging them all is a fool's errand. He calls her a self-centered drunkard.

They both say a lot of things they don't mean.

But some of it is absolute truth.

He wonders how much of it is his fault.

He wonders how much of it had been their all along.

* * *

He's not surprised when Valerie leaves him, but it still stings.

When Max leaves it feels like dying.

* * *

He falls in love with Val at first sight, flaming red hair, sparkling in the sunshine.

He first sees Max in the darkness, his statue of Bast slipping smoothly into a bag of loot. There's a gun between the two of him, but he feels something, a tug, a pull, something inside screaming that she's perfect.

He doesn't believe in love at first sight anymore.

No, love comes three months later when he tells her about Hannah and she folds her arms around him. There's no coming back from that.

* * *

When Valerie waltzes back into his life, she brings the same old heartbreak spiraling back behind her.

When Max comes back from the dead it's a miracle.

* * *

His first kiss with Val is sloppy but sweet. They're both a little buzzed from a night of drinking and dancing and they take the long way back to her apartment, through the empty park and to her front door. He is never sure who made the first move, just remembers her soft whisper of goodnight in his ear and then suddenly her lips warm and wet on his own. She shuts the door with a big smile on his face and the promise of tomorrow.

He gets mugged on his way back home.

* * *

His first kiss with Max is desperation and goodbye. It's everything he's ever wanted to tell her and everything he never will.It leaves him empty raw and wanting more.

* * *

He tells Val he loves her the night he proposes. They're in a fancy high priced restaurant with a view of the ocean. She's in a red dress, fingering the locket dangling from her neck. They're eating salmon, with a glass of white wine that cost more than most people make in a month. His palms are drenched with sweat. He recalls the details with perfect clarity, but can't remember her saying she loved him back.

He tells Max he loves her in the back of a junked out car. He feels unnaturally calm even as their precious minutes dwindle to seconds and then down to nothing. He kisses her just after time expires because it could very well be the last chance he gets. He's had the words on his lips a thousand times over and finally voicing them changes everything and nothing all at once.

He leaves before she has a chance to move.

* * *

He remembers divorce proceedings, long settlement talks, the endless nights alone in his penthouse.

He wonders if it was worth it.

He remembers Max's lips covering his, the exhilarating thrill of skin on skin. He remembers how his lungs suddenly refused to fill, the fever raging through his body, remembers what dying feels like and the light you see right before the end.

He's always known it's worth it.

* * *

Val leaves on a bright Sunday morning, almost identical to the one where he first met her. He stares after he and wonders when her hair had dulled and when her smile had stretched past genuine to fake.

Max doesn't leave, just fades into the workings of Terminal City, burying herself in the fledgling society. Logan sinks back into Eyes Only, delving into the world of the corrupt governments and the dismal depths of human depravity. They don't lose hope. They just stop looking for a miracle

* * *

It's four years to the day before he feels her skin again. Her hand slips into his and it feels so natural, so perfect that it's a full ten minutes before he remembers he should be dying.

He turns his head to the side, searching Max's eyes for answers. She meets his gaze and squeezes. "Did you?" he chokes.

She smiles

It's not a dream.

* * *

Sometimes, late at night, he holds Valerie's memory next to Max and thinks about beginnings and endings and everything in between.

There's really no comparison.

(end)


End file.
